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The second leg and the second stage victory: Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz managed to more than double their advantage in the VW Race Touareg on the second day of the Dakar Rally. The Spanish duo won the 764 kilometers stage from Córdoba to San Miguel in Argentina in front of their team-mates Nasser Al-Attiyah and Timo Gottschalk.

X-raid BMW driver Stéphane Peterhansel, who was running in second place for a long time, finished the stage in third. Sainz is now leading the overall standings with 3:05 in front of his closest rival, the Frenchman Peterhansel. Nasser Al-Attiyah follows with just 14 seconds.

In the "Garden of the Republic" as the area in the Tucumán region is called Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz (ZA/D) in another Race Touareg set the stage’s fourth-best time, thus improving by one position to fourth place overall. Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA) in the fourth Race Touareg suffered a time loss. They damaged their vehicle during an excursion off the track at the beginning of the special stage and dropped back by more than 40 minutes in the interim standings.

"This was an outstanding day for Volkswagen. We’re highly pleased with the results" said Kris Nissen. "By clinching his second stage win Carlos doubled his advantage. Today confirmed that Stéphane Peterhansel is our strongest rival. Behind him two other Volkswagen drivers, Nasser and Giniel, follow. Mark Miller’s time loss was a drop of bitterness. But despite this setback he can still achieve a place among the top. The team will repair the damage so that on the third stage we’ll compete with four cars again."